Sestina

A poem by JAMES FAIRHEAD.

The callous grasp of dreary days behind
lagoons the weeks in doleful cups of tea;
these branded spots in which we met unlike
ourselves, as traitors to our past, cajole
my mind to disregard our almanac
of happy nights, unruly morning suns,

Donne by the bed, eyes scowling through the Sun-
day heaps of careless clothes and trapped behind
fiction. Our home withheld an almanac,
the busy crews of sullied mugs of tea
bore standards of their merry past, cajoled
our naked selves to recommence, unlike

Reflected in each other’s eyes, these ‘almanacs’
betraying evolutions both unlike
the other’s distant mind. This is no place for tea,
this metaphysic-garbled realm of sun
and shade. Could I but see some light behind
that downturned, sorry lip and could cajole

A rising smile, I should say, if cajoled,
we had an equinox, shared almanacs,
celestially-united harmony! Behind
these metaphors is pain. This is unlike
before. The sun was nothing but the sun,
trickling through our curtained door, and tea

Was warm, far from ‘soon hot, soon cold,’ ’twas tea.
our laughter was not false, neither ‘cajoled,’
but came unforced, unpatterned by the ‘sun,’
or anything and undefined by ‘almanacs.’
I’m sorry I’ve behaved to you unlike
before. Help me to put this shit behind.

Behind is best, let’s drink some friendly tea
again, I’ll be unlike my current self, cajoled
to sleepless nights while thinking of your almanac, waiting for the sun.